Richard Lester’s first Beatles film «A Hard Day’s Night» was a crucial driver for the popularity of the Fab Four in Switzerland. Zurich music shop Jecklin held the rights for the distribution of the Parlophone label in Switzerland. This rare poster promoted the AHDN-Soundtrack with the slogan «Zurich is talking about The Beatles».

Though The Beatles were very popular in Switzerland, there were only few magazines with Beatles cover stories, as at that moment there were rarely any Swiss youth magazines around. This might be the first Swiss Beatles magazine cover on “Sie + Er”, June 1964. The magazine had already reported earlier on the Beatles phenomenon.

In the Mid Sixties, there was no serious discussion of The Beatles’ music in the Swiss media. Instead, they took over the Beatles humour and published lightweighted Yeah-Yeah-Stories and also caricatures, as these two examples by cartoonist Hans Sigg demonstrate.

In September 1964 Zurich Newspaper made a big survey among it’s young readers, asking: «Are the Beatles fans primitive?». The responses where overwhelming so the paper dedicated three whole pages to this «hot» topic.

This pendant, which was obviously produced to promote the Beatles’ «All You Need Is Love» Single, was a very popular accessoire at the first «Love-In» Flower power meetings in Zurich, early September 1967.

In March 1966 the first Swiss teen and music mag Pop was released (in the beginning, it was published monthly). The Beatles only made it to the Pop cover once, while existing as a band. George, John and Paul each had a Pop cover during the Sixties and very early Seventies. An early case of Retromania? From 1974 on, the Beatles appeared far more often on Pop covers, sometimes more than once a year.